From the Diary of Rudolpho Milano

Dear Diary,

I hate statues.

I especially hate the kind that come to life and try to kill you. That’s usually the kind of statues that we run into. We seem to have a real talent for finding those. It’s uncanny.

Let me back up. After the monkey slaughter, we settled in the filthy monkey room to rest for a few hours. After the big brains got all of their magic tricks prepared for the day, we tried to figure out how to find and rescue the rest of the team.

Well, I sure as hell never came up with a plan and if anyone ever came up with a plan I sure as hell never heard it but we took off anyway like we knew exactly what we were doing. To look at us you would think “Wow. There’s a bunch of guys that have their shit together.” And you would be completely wrong.

I guess our ‘plan’ amounted to bashing a locked door and running down a hall of screaming monkey statues. That’s right – screaming monkey statues. At the end of that hall was a pair of big, demonic brass doors. We opened those doors to quite a scene.

At our end of the room was a short set of steps down to the floor level of a sixty-foot-long room. In the middle of the room was a ten foot wide fire pit. At the far end of the room was a short flight of steps up to a platform where stood a freaking huge statue of my favorite two-headed monkey snake loser. Suspended with chains forty feet above the fire pit was – Daria! We found Daria! As soon as we opened those brass doors, a winch mechanism began lowering Daria into the fire pit.

I was already through the doors when I heard screaming from the hallway. I figured that the rest of the team could manage to defend themselves and that someone else would save Daria so I took off to deal with the most pressing problem: the statue.

I took off across the room. I jumped down the steps, across the fire pit, and up to the platform and hit the statue with all I had. Nesta took a couple steps down the stairs and fired three arrows at the winch mechanism. One of the arrows stuck and jammed the works so that Daria stopped descending.

Throughout all of the shouting and fighting, I just kept hacking away at the inert statue. After half a dozen chops, I had it destroyed and could turn my attention to the battle going on behind me.

Apparently, the team was fighting the chief demon monkey and he was pulling out all the stops - turning invisible, teleporting, summoning darkness… the whole works. I got one good whack at him before he disappeared on us. I then had a great idea and moved to attack another one of his statues. Sure enough, he wasn’t about to hide and let me systematically destroy his temple. Gwen sang one of her songs and an area of the room was coated in raining gold flecks. The gold flecks revealed the invisible monkey demon moving to stop me. He was quickly cut down.

Guess what happened next. After what should have been the last battle, the damn statue that I had so thoughtfully destroyed, reassembled itself and came to life. The whole team had to give it all we had to destroy this damn thing. Just like the monkeys, the statue seemed resistant to all but our mightiest blows (mine). We killed it just he same. Ha! The loser just should have stayed dead until we left.

Mystic Z supposes that the statue may have just been an inert stone statue until we earned the personal attention and wrath of whomever the statue represented – just freakin’ great.

We still didn’t find much good treasure.

-R

No Small Sacrifice

With Daria wandering off, the party discovers a secret room behind the throne room. One chest was trapped and incinerated when it was bashed open. The other chest had some of the loot Rudy was expecting.

Checking the whereabouts of Daria's last known position, the door opens into a room of bones. Ranging from two to ten feet think, the bones hamper movement all around the room. Nesta examines a fountain, and Kongu just smashes the thing until it sprays water everywhere. A large human headed snake zombie thingy rises from a pile of bones and casts a spell. Z panics and casts silence. So there is no sound while the party pounds the snake monster into mush. Z uses a spell he saves for Kongu, and repairs the fountain back into working order.

Then the party travels down a long hall of howling ape statues. Rudy runs and opens the far door. This time there are five Statues and a big fire pit, with Daria swinging from a chain over the pit. Rudy is furious that the statues would do something like that, so he charges the far status and starts bashing it until it falls into rubble. The big monkey-demon-smelly-ape-brute appears out of nowhere and starts clobbering everyone. The chain holding Daria starts to drop her into the fire pit. With combat raging all around, Nesta pulls a once-in-a-lifetime bow shot planting an arrow deep into the gears of the winch moving the chain. The boss monkey flies into a rage and pounds everyone. A few characters fall unconscious in combat, wounded. At the end of their rope, the party merely outlasts Monkey-kong.

Apparently, the destruction of the main statue attracts the wrong kind of attention. A strange green mist forms around the statue and it reforms and attacks the party. The two-headed monkey statue is a juggernaut, attacking with its vicious tentacles. When the statue finally falls, the aura of evil leaves the shrine and the foggy mists dissipate into the air.

The way now clear, the party continues southward. They find a recently abandoned village, and a dinosaur tries to eat Vin.

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Session Characters: Nesta, Kongu, Rudolpho, Vin, Gwendelyn, Ortho, Z
Session Loot: 2000gp, 3000sp, +1 buckler, wand of aid(50), +1 warhammer spell storing, potion of haste, bone shaped copper wand of lesser silent metamagic, +2 bracers of armor, boots of levitation, +1 cloak of resistance, ring of the ram, +2 ring of protection

From the Diary of Rudolpho Milano

Dear Diary,

Who is this stupid two-headed snake / monkey guy?

Whoever he is, I hate him. I hope he has two asses also so I can kick both of them. This whole foggy mire is probably his fault. After the big monkey battle, Z used some magic to finally find a way through the jungle to a mountain temple of some sort.

The temple had two entrances. Each of them was a big, ugly monkey face. We went in and wandered around and saw some boring crap that some of the other team found really freaking fascinating. In one room, we found a riddle and a pair of statues Nesta ran all over the room until she had placed her hands in each of the statues’ mouths and we gained entry into another room.

So, I’m told anyway. At the time, I was buried under a big pile of rubble. Much earlier, I had gotten bored and decided to leave – by way of the other big, ugly monkey face. The entrance was rigged to collapse and I found myself buried under tons of rubble.

Of course, this immediately pissed me off. I struggled for about a minute to get all of that crap off of me and several times I thought I just about had it. Well, diary, I guess some things are just beyond even me. I was starting to feel like I was going to give out from lack of air.

Well, I guess the others must have heard it and sent Kongu to investigate because just when I was bout to give up I finally heaved myself up through the rubble to see that Kongu had removed some of the largest rocks.

Like I said, the team had gained entry into a previously hidden room. This room was even more of a boring pain in the ass. There was an altar with two candles, two mirrors, and two thrones. We played around with all of this ridiculous crap for a few moments before somebody did something that got us all burnt. That was real freaking funny.

Then to make it even more boring than before, everyone stood out of range of any future fire explosions and set bout poking around at all of this crap in a very systematic and boring way. Eventually we opened two portals in the two mirrors and, if you can believe this crap, had to kill feral duplicates of Daria and Nesta.

The portals let us into yet another strange chamber. This one had what looked to be a natural rock shelf some forty feet up. I began to climb the wall to get to this rock ledge when we were attacked by filthy monkeys.

This battle ran much as the first. The monkeys just couldn’t seem to be hurt with weapons and seemed to be immune to Ortho’s magic lightning – a real shitty arrangement if you ask me. Anyway, those monkeys tried all of their tricks but they couldn’t fool me a second time and we killed them.

After that, we explored an area of the cave system just off of the rock shelf. We opened a door and were overwhelmed by a leaping, howling mob of filthy monkeys. Armor and shields were no use against the tide so Kongu threw down his shield and started swinging his sword with both hands. He didn’t even have to aim; there were so many monkeys that you couldn’t swing a sword without hitting one.

I’ve never seen such carnage before. It was great! Kongu sent pieces of monkey fur, bones, and organs flying everywhere. Vin & I tried to keep up with Kongu’s extermination and within a few seconds, the mob had dispersed and fled back to the jungle. Yep, that was the high point of my week. Nothing says success like being coated with the entrails of your enemy.

As much as I enjoyed the slaughter, I was disappointed to find no real loot. We also could not find Daria (or evil, fake Daria). Oh well, I cared about that for about as long as it took me to settle into a nice nap. Daria will show up sooner or later – probably with the loot.

-R

Monkey Shrines

Mirror play. The party, not content with opening the portal, continue with ritual experiments. Deciding that an evil Gweyndlyn was the least lethal opponent, the experiment go on with an almost sinister tone.

Finally, entering the portal, they find a cavern filled with standing water and reeking of wet fur. The eerie red light of the cavern shows a cloud of blood in the middle of the water in the room. Then more demonic monkeys attack. The battle is fierce as the party takes numerous severe and savage attacks. Illusions, teleporting, an darkness are not enough to overcome the intrepid adventurers.

Kongu opens the door to a room with columns and a throne, only to be assaulted by a mob of crazed monkeys. The monkey mob follows Kongu's tactical retreat into the passageway. The party is blurred in a mass of fangs and fur. Kongu drops all defenses and manhandles his weapon into the crowd. Blood and bone spray everywhere as Kongu power attacks until the last monkey falls.

The party rest, recuperates, and searches the area. Where is Daria?

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Session Characters: Nesta, Rudolpho, Vin, Kongu, Ortho, Gwendelyn, Daria, Z
Session Loot: [none] Rudolpho is getting suspicious.